A video game clone is either a video game (or series) which is very similar to or heavily inspired by a previous popular game or series. It also applies to a third-party remake of a video game console.
The term is sometimes derogatory, implying a lack of originality, however clones can be anything from a pure "ripoff", to a legitimate derivative or improvement on the original or even a homage.
Cloning a game in digital marketplaces is common, because it is hard to prevent and easy to compete with existing games. Developers can copyright the graphics, title, story, and characters, but they cannot easily protect software design and game mechanics. A patent for the mechanics is possible, but acquiring one is expensive and time-consuming.
Read more about Video Game Clone: Video Game Consoles
Famous quotes containing the words video game, video, game and/or clone:
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“These people figured video was the Lord’s preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. “He’s in the de-tails,” Sublett had said once. “You gotta watch for Him close.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“A man’s idea in a card game is war—cruel, devastating and pitiless. A lady’s idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and burglary.”
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936)
“Women of my age in America are at the mercy of two powerful and antagonistic traditions. The first is the ultradomestic fifties with its powerful cult of motherhood; the other is the strident feminism of the seventies with its attempt to clone the male competitive model.... Only in America are these ideologies pushed to extremes.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)